CEO Beginner's Guide, Lesson 17b: What Are Employees Used For?

As a first-time CEO, you know what employees are. You see them throughout the building, sitting at desks, writing things down, working at various machines such as lathes or computers, interacting with other employees and with management, speaking on the phone. In lesson 17a, you learned how to distinguish an employee from various other persons who may be in the building.

So you know what they are, but it may not be immediately apparent what your employees are for. A good CEO not only has to be able recognize what an employee is, but also what it is good for. Today's topic will walk you through some of the basics.

1) Giving you reports. You can pretty much tell any employee to give you a report on anything, and they will have to do it. This is just a good way to make sure that the employee is on top of their area. It is not usually necessary to read the report, since the employee will leave out anything that is likely to upset you. Simply going through the process of putting that report together will prompt that employee to identify those problem areas. The employee will then say, "I had to leave this out of the report, so I better see that it gets fixed RIGHT NOW." Thus, reports promote efficiency even if you do not read them. NOTE: In the event of an unfixable problem, the employee might decide to leave that problem in the report. It might be worthwhile to skim the report just in case, so that if the employee has drawn your attention to a problem that is unfixable, you can then direct the employee to fix it.

2) Delegate your own work. If you have any inconvenient work tasks that you understand well enough to explain to an employee, you can simply have the employee do it instead. If you don't understand the task well enough to explain it, don't let that stop you from delegating it. The employee can redo the task as many times as necessary, until the end result meets your high standards. For exceptionally complicated tasks, promote teamwork by delegating the task to more than one employee.

3) Boosting morale. Morale is actually more important than it might seem, since it has been shown that many leading business management manuals consider it to be very important. If used properly, employees are well-suited to boosting morale. Allowing or directing employees to take part in brief gatherings for cake or snacks on "special occasions," to participate in faith-neutral seasonal-themed workplace decoration, and even to engage in periodic light banter with each other (within reason) can foster the overall appearance of a happy and productive work environment. This reflects well on you, as long as you do not get carried away with the concept. IMPORTANT: Do not participate personally in any of this. You are trying to convey the idea of a workplace where frivolity is tolerated - not encouraged. Nothing is more demoralizing to a company than a CEO setting a bad example.

4) Providing the explanation for failure. This is the chief purpose of employees. It is important to identify which employees should be singled out as the reason for the failure of any given program, or the business in general. If the employees in question are equally valuable as workers, try to shift the blame to employees who exhibit the highest morale and the greatest degree of dedication to the company. These are the employees who are less likely to quit when singled out for blame.

You will find that as time goes on, many other uses for employees will suggest themselves. Some of these uses will be covered in the more advanced lessons. Some uses could not be officially included in the lessons for reasons of legality, but should be plain enough to you and fairly self-explanatory. In the meantime, these four should be enough to get you started.